May 2014 Look-Ahead

May I muse on the month of May?  May is the motherly monarch of the months, a magnetic monopoly of Mitzah morality. Merely mentioning the month of May memorizes mortal men in mad merriment for melodic music on metronomes.  Myriad magpies in milky marigolds make May mumble on top of maple mahogany.  May is much more than Magnesium Mujaheddin militarism massing mechanized monstrosities.  Maybe May is multiple mudslingers muckraking malevolently in malfunctioning malfeasance, but May is mostly microscopic macrocosms, millennium millimeters, and mystical mathematics.  Mention also, I must, is the misbegotten maggots mellowing in menstruating malnourished murky mucus that make the middle of May's midmonth moribund.  May I muse on the month of May?

Let us look ahead a the movies and video games which are coming out in May 2014:

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (May 2nd) - Spider-Man returns for his fifth movie, but only his second amazing movie, apparently.  May this year is completely stuffed with Blockbusters, with every week having its own huge release.  And we do not start small, since "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" is seemingly the vanguard for all of Sony's hopes and dreams for the next century.  Every goddamn visit to the movies for seemingly a decade has had a trailer for this movie, I am so sick of looking at Spider-Man's red and blue uniform.  The movie itself seems to be skipping straight to "Spider-Men 3"'s mistake of too many villains, with three bad guys to fight.  It will be a mess.  All of this is going to set up Sony's answer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with "The Amazing Spider-Man 3", "The Sinister Six", and a "Venom" movie all coming out in the next few years.  So eventually there won't even be regular movies, everything will just be a superhero film.  Could this please be a flop so that particular dark future does not come to pass?
-- Chances to be Good:  60%.  I liked the first "Amazing Spider-Man" but I cannot remember for the life of me if Dennis Leahry died at the end or not.

Belle (May 2nd) - Perhaps the stuffiest film of 2014 yet, "Belle" is an English drama film about an upper class British family raising an illegitimate Black child as one of their own, and the social wackiness that ensues.  It is based upon the real case of Dido Elizabeth Belle, a gentlewoman of African descent that lived in an abolitionist family in England during the 18th and 19th centuries.  And that's really all there is to say about that.
-- Chances to be Good:  61%.  Tom Wilkinson is in it, there is that.

Chef (May 9th) - And now for something far less stuffy.  Jon Favreau directs, stars in, writes, and produces "Chef", a comedy about a Cuban cook standing up for his true passion in life:  making great food.  This is Favreau's first auteur production, which is a huge departure for his giant Blockbusters such as "Iron Man".  Instead it is a small production of love for cooking.  To pull that off his dreams, Favreau's character goes on a "Bob's Burgers"-esque adventure, experimenting with new cuisine, getting a food truck, and surrounding himself with wacky idiots such as John Leguizamo and Robert Downey Jr.  Just looking at how beautifully the food is shot in this trailer is enough to make me want to see this, and to order from this guy's food truck.
-- Chances to be Good:  80%.  ROBERT DOWNEY JR.

Who thought this was a good idea again?

Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return (May 9th) - There once was a movie called "Return to Oz", an incredibly dark reimagining of the Oz universe as a dystopian nightmare.  That was a completely unique cinematic experience that everybody should watch.  "Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return" is a movie I can barely believe is getting made.  The CG animation is ancient and cheap, the jokes look stale and forced, the entire experience looks miserable.  I complain a lot about movies that look like they were made by a committee but this seriously looks like a movie no conscious person could have loved, or will love.  Only mindless group-think could have produced a movie like this.  Since the title has a colon in it, there is an implicit threat of more of these horrible movies getting made.  But I'm worried, "Dorothy's Return" looks flop-tastic.
-- Chances to be Good:  0%.

Neighbors (May 9th) - Despite being a comedy movie, "Neighbors" looks good.  It is directed by Nicholas Stoller, the former director of two perfectly solid comedies, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "Get Him to the Greek", which was one of my favorite movies of 2010.  This time we have a young married couple, Seth Rogan and Rose Byrne, at war with a college fraternity that has moved next door - a fraternity that is exactly 5,000 times more cool than any real life fraternity has ever been or could ever hope to be.  Zac Efron is playing probably the role he was born for, a stupid douchbag.  With no challengers other than "Legends of Oz", "Neighbors" will devour the box office.
-- Chances to be Good:  70%.  I am not sure if this will get a review since I so rarely review comedies, but this actually looks very funny.

GODZILLA!!!

Godzilla (May 16th) - GODZILLLLLLLLLLLA!!! GODZILLA!!!  GOD... ZILLA!!!  G-G-GODZILLA!!!  GOZDILLA!  GOD AND ZILLA! GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDZIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!  GODZILLA!!!
-- Chances to be Good:  GODZILLA%.

Million Dollar Arm (May 16th) - Jon Hamm recruits two Indian boys to become major league sluggers.  Also Jon Hamm gets to shove a pork sausage inside of Lake Bell.  This is a feel-good family drama with well... absolutely nothing that I want to see.  I shall walk right past this Disney family nonsense to see GODZILLA destroy more stuff.  GODZILLA!!
-- Chances to be Good:  50%.  If this is your thing, sure.  GODZILLA!!!  (Okay, I'll stop.)

Blended (May 23rd) - Adam Sandler made another movie.  Because God hates us.
-- Chances to be Good:  Fuck All%.  When was the last time an Adam Sandler movie was good?

Naked blue Jennifer Lawrence... and other people.

X-Men: Days of Future Past (May 23rd) - The X-Men go back in time to defeat Tyrion Lannister who has robots.  After "X-Men: First Class" arrived, giving us the opportunity for fresh stories in other times with other characters in the X-Men Universe, "Days of Future Past" comes to shatter that universe and put it back into proper order:  with everything focused upon Wolverine and Wolverine alone.  Did you want a Magneto movie?  Nope, Wolverine.  Did you want a Storm movie?  Nope, Wolverine.  "X-Men Days of Future Past" will retcon, reconfigure, and obliterate all continuity in order to Wolverine as much as any film has Wolverined before.  I would love to see a movie about Professor X and Magneto confronting their past selves.  But of course, that doesn't matter because Wolverine.
-- Chances to be Good:  60%.  It looks like a mess.  And 2014 is not even half over, but I think I'm already exhausted of writing about superhero movies.  Hopefully Fassbender can steal this show and save it.

HAHAHA!! DARKNESS!  THE TRUUUUUUUUE DARKNESS!!!!!!!!

Maleficent (May 30th) - Everybody's favorite Kingdom Hearts villain is getting a major retcon, now being made the star of a fantasy epic film in the style of "Snow White and the Huntsman"* or "Jack the Giant Slayer".  So now we get to see the backstory of Maleficent, and discover that instead of being a simple mad witch out to conquer the world, she's actually... a mad witch out to conquer the world, as far as I can tell.  But she had wings at one point, or something.  Angelina Jolie is trying to out-do Charlize Theron as a veteran but still gorgeous actress playing a maniac witch.
-- Chances to be Good:  59%.  The effects look pretty, the story has potential, but who really knows?

A Million Ways to Die in the West (May 30th) - Seth MacFarlane follows up "Ted" and his now deeply-maligned Academy Awards hosting job with "A Million Ways to Die in the West".  He directs and stars in a goofy comedy about a regular guy having to fight Liam Neeson, or else be killed a presumably million times.  People drop dead a lot in the trailer, so we've definitely seen about a dozen ways to die in the West.  I have my doubts if the film will manage to fill up a million ways.  Also, Seth MacFarlane seems like a pretty natural star, he could actually work as a lead actor, which is good.
-- Chances to be Good:  (Solve for X) 50X(40/5) = 32000% So basically, it all looks good, and this is pretty much the only Western coming out this year.

Video Games:

Yeah, he's cute.  But after years of Smash Bros all I can see a pink blob of pure HATRED.

Kirby: Triple Deluxe (May 2nd) - Kirby returns in a Kirby game! Except this time he's on the 3DS!  And I think that's all there is to say.  It is yet another Kirby game, using the same old incredibly easy gameplay, with Kirby going around as his usual frightening eldritch abomination self, devouring his enemies and stealing their powers.  And what is new and exciting about this newest installment?  Um..... Um.... Err.... Um...
-- Chances to be Good:  70%.  Kirby games never suck, but they're always stupidly easy and kinda boring.

Mario Golf: World Tour (May 2nd) - Mario and his friends play golf.  On the 3DS.
-- Chances to be Good:  65%.  Yeah, it has Mario, Daisy in some cute shorts, and weird stage hazards, but that's all there to make you forget that you're playing golf.  Sorry, it is still golf.

Bound by Flame (May 9th) - This is an action RPG made by Spiders, which sounds awesome, until you realize it is not in fact a race of sentient video game-making spiders, but rather a French development house made up entirely of human employees who seem to do nothing but make this kind of game.  There has been virtually no press about Bound by Flame, even though it is coming out on the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Windows.  I really cannot find much about this title, probably because everybody has completely forgotten about it already.  It looks exactly like every other Western RPG out there, but with twice the generic sauce.  This is coming out in just a few days, that is assuming anybody can remember it long enough to ship the discs.
-- Chances to be Good:  40%.  What was I talking about again?

This is going to be very weird.

Drakengard 3 (May 20th) - This is my second-most-anticipated release of May 2014.  "Drakengard" is an old RPG franchise, having its very first installment on the PlayStation 1.  This new PS3 game seems to be such a weird and niche title I'm surprise modern Square Enix is bothering to give it such a high-profile release.  This is an incredibly weird game starring a girl with a flower growing out of her eye-socket.  Also, this is going to be a freakish adventure, made like one of Square's weirder late-90s releases.  For example, the final boss is a rhythm game, when the rest of it is an action RPG.  There are multiple endings, an insane mythology, and a complex world.  Definitely worth a shot if you want your brains scrambled.
-- Chances to be Good:  75%.  Yeah, "Xenogears" and "Final Fantasy VIII" were memorable titles, but they were also some of the most ill-conceived RPGs I've ever played.  "Drakengard" seems to come right from that legacy, where game devs didn't really care so much about making games fun as making them needlessly freaky.

Transistor (May 20th) - "Transistor" is the newest video game from Supergiant, the creators of "Bastion", a really arty well-loved title.  Like "Bastion", "Transistor" promises to be a beautiful but bizarre adventure featuring a unique world, it's own brand of gameplay, and a hipster narrator talking at you for the entire time.  The gameplay is an interesting combination of action and turn-based strategy, with your electrical powers giving all kinds of strategic possibilities.  Also it is pretty.  Like ridiculously pretty.  Like so pretty you'll get cavities from it.
-- Chances to be Good:  60%.  I'm not sure about how the gameplay will work, but mostly I'm just peeved that this game is a PS4 and Windows exclusive, meaning I cannot play it just now.

Wolfenstein: The New Order (May 20th) - What if the Nazis had won World War II?  "Wolfenstein: The New Order", the newest AAA blockbuster on every consoles except for those made by Nintendo, gives very little thought to that question to instead make an exploitation video game about a very boring American dude running around killing villains from a 1970s Italian horror film.  As for the gameplay... it's a first person shooter.  You shoot in the first person, your health regenerates, you know.  I was hoping, considering this game's pedigree, that it would be a return to fast-paced high-energy FPS's from the 1990s, the kinds of games I never got a chance to play until FPS's transformed into dull, slow, spectacle pieces with jelly splashing on your face.  But hopefully at the end you will get a chance to fight a robot Adolf Hitler.
-- Chances to be Good:  40%.  "Inspiration"?  That word has eleven letters in it!  That's way too high of a reading level for the makers of this game.

Alright, those are good graphics.

Watch Underscore Dogs (May 27th) - "Watch_Dogs" is probably my most anticipated release of this year.  As far as I'm concerned, this is 2014's "BioShock Infinite", that one new game that I must play because it is simply miles above everything else coming out.  "Watch_Dogs" is an open-world game made by Ubisoft, where you play as a hacker in the near-future of Chicago, using your hacking powers to sneak past opponents, steal cars, manipulate the world around you, and just be awesome for hour after hour.  The graphics are stunning, beyond words, but unfortunately I'll be playing the last-gen version, so the graphics I will see will definitely be within words.  Words like "decent" and "okay".  If you want to go out there and battle the NSA and their evil plan to conquer the Internet, this will be the game for you.
-- Chances to be Good:  90%.  It looks really good.

Mario Kart 8 (May 30th) - Mario Kart again.  On the WiiU.
-- Chances to be Good:  100%.  Mario Kart again.  On the WiiU.

And that is it for May.  The Look-Ahead will return, as you might predict, in June, when presumably new video games and movies will come out.

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* "Snow White and the Huntsman", as it turns out, was the last film to feature veteran English actor, Bob Hoskins, who died yesterday at the age of 71.  Hoskins, though he had a very tiny role, was absolutely fantastic in that movie.